Wings of Freedom
by Kaede Ravensdale
Summary: Stealing and killing is normal for Levi, after as life spent in the Underground. He never could have guessed the latest job would be the key to a destiny he never wanted or that it would make him the center piece of a war for the Empire's future. Eragon inspired.


The air was thick with the metallic scent of ozone, the cloud choked sky echoing the distant growl of thunder. Wind hissed through the trees and the tall grass and wild flowers, shaking stalks and fronds together in a wild blur of life and color. With a flash of lighting the heavens split with rain, speckles of water darkening the dry soil. Falling faster and faster until hard ground was reduced to turned mud. Saturating the earth. Covering the ground with a thin skin of cold water which reflected the second flash of lightning that ripped through the sky.

In the world below the only evidence of the storm now raging over head was the choking smell of damp and what few droplets of rain could manage to stubbornly squeeze themselves through thin cracks in ancient stone. Trickling along the uneven ceiling, drawn together between the hanging fangs of rock until their combined weight became too much and they plummeted into the forgotten city of murderers and thieves which stretched below. Shattering against the brow of the raven who perched on steps of the ramshackle home where he'd been born.

Grey eyes turned upwards in time for another droplet to blind him with stinging cold. Recoiling with a hiss, he rose to his feet and scrubbed the liquid away. "Shitty weather." Annoyed, the short-of-stature male mounted the stairs and returned inside.

The interior of the home was lit by the dim glow of stunted candles, sparsely furnished with recovered furniture and just close enough to being clean to make of itself an eternal irritant to his compulsive disorder. His father sat hunched in a three legged chair, hand splayed palm up on his left knee as his fingers traced the raised silver scar etched into the base of his thumb. He'd never seen it clearly but knew it to be circular and oddly striated and that it always seemed to bother Kenny when the weather took a turn for the cold or the wet.

He'd learned not to question him on it years ago, after the third time had left him with a badly busted lip.

"Levi." The raven's progress towards the rickety stairs was halted by the harsh rasp of his voice. In his youth his father might have been a handsome man but there wasn't even a shadow of that left now amidst the harsh plains and sharp features of his bearded face. The candles around them guttered, reflecting in his piercing eyes. "Sit."

A job, then. The mixture of relief and wariness formed a familiar bitter taste on the tip of his tongue as he approached the second chair and sat down across the table. It would be a mercy to have something more to do than wait around or go two-against-two with Farlan, even more so if the task he was about to be given was one that would take him beyond the Underground into the world above, but the streak of hesitance had reason to be there. His father wasn't a man to let your guard down around no matter who you were, or weren't, to him. Failure wasn't tolerated in even the most remote of terms and it was all too common for him to withhold information he didn't believe necessary to know.

As a result, more often than not, the three of them ended up going in blind with only the knowledge of what they were stealing-or who they were making disappear-and the cut they'd be receiving in return.

Along with how to take a man for all he hand and the proper method of ending lives with a single slash of a three inch knife, one of the first things Levi had learned was that being the son of the most feared man in the Underground afforded no mercy.

If anything, it left his noose with a much shorter drop.

"Listen to me, boy, and listen well because the instructions I'm about to give you had damn well better be followed exactly." His open hand closed into a fist as he adjusted his position in the chair. "And you'd better make sure Church and Magnolia don't screw this up either; it's on your head if anything goes wrong."

"We've never made a mess of things before. What makes you think this time will be different?" though Levi couldn't deny a part of him was made extremely nervous by the unusual segue into matters.

"Watch your mouth, brat!" Though he didn't betray his wariness outwardly the raven kept a watchful eye on the switch blade now brandished in his direction, suppressing a shudder at the sight of the splotches of red and brown adorning it. He'd seen enough blood by now to be able to differentiate it from rust. "You're going to take Church and Magnolia and you're going to steal…a massive emerald from the palace treasury. _Do not touch it!_ "

Silver eyes blinked once in confusion. "Why not?"

Even after all these years the older man was quick as a snake and Levi wasn't fast enough to dodge the strike aimed at him. He recoiled with a hiss of pain, palming at the narrow slash dripping blood down his cheek.

"I've told you what you need to know you little shit. Keep asking questions and I'll cut out your tongue with this knife; it's not as if you really need it for life down here. Of course, then you'd have to find something else to shove down Church's throat."

Levi hissed at him. "Disgusting bastard! We're practically related!"

"Practically related isn't actually related. And even if you really were brothers there's no one down here who'd give a fuck if you were fucking. As long as it didn't get in the way of earning your keep." Kenny snapped his knife shut and set it on the table. "Get!"

Resisting the urge to snatch up the blade and thread it through his father's throat Levi turned on his heel and stalked back out of the house. The rate at which the droplets fell had increased considerably in the time he'd been inside and it now almost appeared as if a budget rainstorm had taken a wrong turn.

Because he needed more aggravation in his life.

Shielding his head as best he could with his arms Levi took off down the street at a run, reaching the building where the other two members of his family-who he actually liked-lived in record time and letting himself in. The door had barely had the chance to swing shut behind him before a red and green blur had launched itself at him, knocking him back against the wood with its momentum.

"Aniki!" Isabelle's squeal was enough to make him cringe. When she looked up and noticed the cut on his face her smile immediately dropped, expression shifting into something deadly. "You're bleeding."

"The bastard's being even more restrictive with information than usual." The raven easily slid from her grasp and walked towards the nearest chair.

"Another job come around?" Farlan appeared out of the small kitchen with three cups in one hand and a bottle in another. Levi grunted in affirmation. "What?"

"Stealing some shitty rock." On top of inheriting Kenny's black hair and evil scowl, he'd also inherited his vocabulary. "We're being sent to the Capital. To the palace."

"Ambitious." He poured a cup and passed it to Levi, then another and passed it to Isabelle-who knocked it back without pause-and took the last for himself before sitting down. "What's it worth?"

"Don't know." The raven took a drink.

"What?" The red head's voice was a bit louder than necessary. Levi could feel a headache beginning to creep up on him. At least the cut on his face had stopped bleeding. "Your father always tells us what our cut is going to be!"

"Is he aware of what it's worth?" Farlan asked.

"It's not a matter of him not knowing." The raven messaged his temples. "Some of the instructions he gave were odd as well. 'Don't touch it' foremost."

"It could be something magical, and dangerous. Reiss is a Dragon Rider. They're known for their magic." The dark blonde refilled his cup. Levi had to admit that the other had a point. He still didn't like it. "Does he still think we're secretly involved?"

"Tch!"

Farlan grinned. "You wound me."

"I see you as a brother, Church, you're not gay and I'm not into blondes."

"Thank goodness for that." Isabelle said. "I love you both but I'd rather you two not become any more involved and turn me into the third wheel."

Levi snorted, reached out and ruffled her hair. As per usual the red head made a disgruntled sound but didn't attempt to stop him. "Little shit."

"When are we headed out?" Farlan asked, setting his cup aside now that the bottle was finished.

"Dawn." Levi said.

"You're staying the night?"

"If you can spare the space."

"We can spare the space for you to come and live with us, Aniki." Isabelle said. "Can't figure out why you still live with your father if he's such a bastard."

"If I had the choice to move out I'd have come to live with the both of you years ago." The raven groused, toeing off his shoes and stretching out on the couch. "But father dearest won't let me out from under his thumb until his dies. Shitty control freak."

"He's almost fifty now, isn't he?" Farlan collected the glasses once certain the other two had finished and started back towards the kitchen. "Shouldn't be too much longer. Especially down here."

The shorter man made a noncommittal sound in response.

"So what's the plan?" Levi cracked one silver eye back open to peer at Isabelle, who'd leaned forward in her seat in her excitement. Because of his current position, head tilted back over the armrest of the stiff sofa, the room appeared inverted. "We're breaking into the palace. That's a job that's a lot more difficult than usual. Isn't this the part where you and Farlan cover the table with maps and start writing up an essay on the best method of attack?"

"Usually it would be. But none of us have been to the Capital before and I wasn't given any maps or blueprints this time around. Planning before we've seen anything is a shitty move." He closed his eyes again. "We'll come up with a strategy once we've staked the place out. For the moment, the 'plan' is to get some sleep."

Levi turned onto his side, burying his face in the worn leather in an effort to block out some of the light. He spent the next few hours drifting in and out of consciousness. Questions about the stone and its worth and why they'd been told not to touch it dogged him through the twists and turns of dreams of blood and dragons. Eventually the candles were blown out and both Farlan and Isabelle retreated to their rooms on the second floor, leaving him alone on the first in the dark. The dripping of the false rain slowed, then disappeared.

Green scales. Golden fire. A male voice, saying his name and a phrase in a language he didn't understand yet somehow sounded like 'my other half'.

He sprung onto all fours when a hand came down on his shoulder, relaxing when he caught sight of familiar steel-blue eyes peering at him through the gloom.

"Are you alright?" Farlan asked him, a subtle edge of concern to his voice.

Levi nodded, bangs falling into his eyes. "Fine." He said. "Just…odd dreams."

Odd really was the only word for them. They weren't nightmares. But they certainly weren't normal either. Even now the exact words, melodic in tone and metallic in construction fitted together like the rings of a gold chain, were falling through the sieve of his memory yet their meaning seemed branded into the surface of his mind.

'My other half'.

But what did it mean?

"If you're certain. But we should get going; it'll take a while yet to get up to the entrance and it's already almost daybreak." His brother in all but blood released him then and moved to turn away, but stopped mid-way through and added "by the way, happy fifteenth birthday."

Not that another year alive meant anything in the life they lived. Levi had forgotten the date himself a long time ago and couldn't understand why the pair still insisted on marking the matter, even if only with their words.

He'd given up on attempting to discourage them what seemed like ages ago.

"Where's Magnolia?" the raven asked to change the subject.

"Outside. We're ready to head out when you are, Levi." The blonde told him.

"No point in sitting around here." The shorter male rose from the couch, checked his pockets and, once certain that his knife was indeed still on him, started towards the door. As Farlan had said the red head was indeed waiting outside on the step, her crossbow and quiver of bolts fastened to her narrow back. She repeated a considerably more excitable variation of the other's well wishes to similar results and the trio started towards the passage to the world above.

The stair case was narrow, crumbling and treacherous. In places it had been destroyed, an effort no doubt on the part of the King's soldiers to prevent the 'scum of the earth' from crawling up out of it, but they'd failed to take into account how reckless desperation made people. And how skillful in odd things necessity could lead one to become. Navigating the devil's stair case through a series of risky leaps and wall climbs without falling or losing any of the equipment they'd brought with them the trio regrouped at the top before heading up along the sloping tunnel.

The pale glow of the opening was visible ahead of them now. The air sweet and cold with early morning. After checking to make sure that the members of the guard who were meant to be watching it were either blind drunk, passed out or both the intrepid group quickly left the entry way and made their way down the narrow dirt path leading away towards the town in the near distance.

The sensation of the cold, damp wind on their skin was foreign. The colors of the sunrise slowly bleeding into the washed-grey sky a rare sight. All three paused to watch the blazing orb flood the heavens with pale blue in a moment of silence which seemed to stretch on for eternity before Levi roused both of his companions with light taps to the shin.

"We've been out in the open for long enough." He said, resuming the trek down the path. "We should head into Trost and focus on catching a ride to the Capital."


End file.
